THE chocolate making class

City: Antigua, Guatemala 
Place: Choco museo (chocolate museum)
Time: 2 pm

"Ready Dinh?", I asked, while skipping out the door of our hotel room. 
It was time to leave for our chocolate making lesson, and I was anxious to hit the road. This is chocolate we're talking about after all!!
Dinh and I were in Antigua, Guatemala. A little birdie told us that this chocolate making class was THE thing to do here, so we decided to see what all the hype was about. 
After a 7 block journey on foot, we arrive at the Choco Museo. 
We meet our teacher, Pablo, and another couple (from New Zealand and France), that will be joining us for our lesson. 
This Pablo was a character. His personality shined bright and his humor had us giggling the entire 2 hours. You could tell he really enjoyed his job. His English was impeccable and he was the perfect teacher. 

We get down to business. First, we learn about the history of chocolate. 
Where it's grown, how many bars each country eats on average (France eats the most), how the chocolate business boomed back in the day, the significance of chocolate to the Mayans and Aztecs, and how it is grown, among other tid bits. 
The Aztecs even used cocao beans as currency . You could buy a hen for 100 cocao beans and a large tomato for 1 cocao bean, for example. 
The cocoa bean grows on a tree inside a large pod. After the bean is removed from the pod, you dry and roast the bean until it becomes crisp on the outside. 

Then you crack and peel off the outer layer by hand or by machine. 
We were all given a raw cocoa bean to sample. My face scrunched up as I chewed the bitter bean. Wow-eee!!
Fact: Cocoa beans give you energy and are potent antioxidants. But I think I prefer it with a little sugar. 
After we had roasted and cracked our beans, we ground them down to a paste using a mortar and pestle. 

This took some elbow grease. Pablo turned it into a game to see who could turn theirs into a paste the quickest.
I lost :(
But not by much!
From the paste, Pablo mixed up a yummy hot chocolate using milk, sugar and chili. It. Was. The bomb. 
We took turns mixing the brown concoction between 2 cups. This helped cool the liquid, as well as produce bubbles to make it foamy. 

Next, Pablo showed us how the chocolate had to be churned for an entire day before it was worthy of eating. It reminded me of making homemade ice cream on Christmas Eve. 

We couldn't wait around for an entire day, of course, so Pablo had back-up chocolate for us to use. We each picked out our own personal molds to pour the chocolate in. I chose owls and shells :)

We were instructed to return in 2 hours to retrieve our chocolaty goods after it had chilled in the fridge. 
It was a hefty amount of chocolate, but this didn't stop me from eating it within a day. 
"Ugh, my stomach hurts, Dinh", I moaned the next afternoon. Dinh shook his head and had no sympathy for this glutton. On the plus side, I had an extraordinary amount of energy and started doing funny things in our hotel, like this:

Chocolate WILL make you hyper

I don't know about you, but I totally dig chocolate. When chocolate hits my taste buds, signals are sent to my brain saying "wow, life is really good". It's a feel good food!!!
I feel like this trip has been like a chocolate exploration expedition. I mean, we ate the best chocolate Mexico had to offer, and now in Guatemala, we make our own chocolate!!! How cool is that??!! 
Ahhh.... I'll always have a special place in my heart for chocolate :)